


The Tale of Two and Two to One

by FireThatFox



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Crime AU, F/M, Hearing Voices, Psychological Torture, Psychological Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-17
Updated: 2020-03-30
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:27:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23186245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FireThatFox/pseuds/FireThatFox
Summary: Sakura and Gaara are too much alike.  Where Sasuke chases Sakura, but she won't give him the time of day.  Naruto is a little more cynical, a little less annoying and likes to fight a lot more. Gaara POVI wasn't going to make this into a crime AU, but I changed my mind because I like the idea of Gaara killing people ruthlessly.
Relationships: Gaara & Haruno Sakura, Gaara/Haruno Sakura, Haruno Sakura & Uzumaki Naruto, Haruno Sakura/Uzumaki Naruto
Comments: 3
Kudos: 23





	1. Chapter 1

I was in hell. Why had I even bothered getting up this morning. This school would be just like the last one, and the one before that. Useless, filled with worthless, disgusting, self absorbed, shallow people. I hated it. I hated them. I didn't want to be here.

The looks of animosity my brother and sister gave me told me everything I needed to know. They blamed me. It was my fault of course, but I couldn't quite bring myself to care...about them or anything. I just didn't care.

The masses, they were like a mindless swarm of living flesh crawling across the Earth. An infection, sucking the life force out of more beautiful living things...people. They were everywhere, I hated them all.

There was nothing here for me, nothing I wanted, nothing that interested me. They all looked the same. Different school, same kinds of people. Different land, same kinds of people...fake. We live in a world of people who say one thing mean another, do one thing, claim another, it disgusted me. No one was real. Love was an illusion, and friendship...a joke.

I followed my brother out of the car when our driver pulled up to the curb in front of the school. My sister got out of the car on the other side and looked up at the building.

"Big isn't it?" Temari said.

"Yeah, a big pain in the ass." My brother Kankuro said, glancing at me out of the corner of his eye.

Yeah, my fault.

It was big though, twice as big as the last high school we had gotten kicked out of in Suna. Two stories, surrounded by woods and a parking lot that could hold a small farm. Big.

We headed for the front doors of the school. I could see a lot of the other students watching us. I'm sure a lot of it had to do with the car and driver, the other half had to do with the clear indication that...we were something new, something different. No one made eye contact with me, and if they did, it was brief, and they always looked away first.

I followed my siblings to the office where we met the principal. She was a big busty blonde who knew my past. 

"I'm the principal, Tsunade Senju, no fighting in my school, obey the rules and this will be a fairly painless procedure. Here are your schedules. Dismissed." She slapped three separate pieces of paper down on her desk and we left.

"Looks like I'm headed this way, see ya." Kankuro left.

"Be good Gaara, no fighting, I don't want to have to move again." Temari gave me a cautious pat on the shoulder and left when I growled at her. I didn't like to be touched.

I looked down at my own schedule, English room 312. "Right."

On the back of our schedules was a map. I followed it to room 312 and walked inside. There was an empty seat in the back, so I sat down, folded my arms over my chest and looked out the window. I didn't want to be here.

I knew people were looking at me. I didn't care. Let them look. I knew what they would see. Short spiky red hair, dark circles around my eyes from years of tormented sleep or lack thereof. I was smaller for my age but not short and weak, just a bit smaller than most guys my age. It made those who didn't know me...underestimate me. They always regretted it, not my fault. I never started the fights, but I never backed down either.

The voices could be heard before their speakers could be seen, but I could tell they were headed for the same room I was in, why...because it was just my luck.

"Sasuke, I already told you I'm not going to go out with you, get lost." A pink haired girl could be heard saying loudly and forcefully. Pink hair? Did she really have pink hair, she had to dye it, it was ridiculous. Couldn't be natural, no way. My eyes fixated on the wayward locks as soon as she had entered the room.

"Come on Sakura, I know you're just playing hard to get, come out with me this Friday, I'll take you to the movie that just came out, everyone wants to see it, it's sold out but I can get us in, my brother's friend owns the theater remember?" A dark haired boy said arrogantly to the pink haired girl who was making her way to the back of the room.

The girl dropped her books onto the desk next to mine and turned with her hands on her hips to face the dark haired boy, who had started smirking at her and said loudly, "Just because any whore will say yes to you, doesn't mean I will, go find another play thing for this Friday. I have better things to do than waste time at a movie I don't want to see with a guy I don't even like."

She sat down in her seat and looked out the window ignoring the dark haired boy's protests. After what seemed like forever the guy left to take his seat a few desks up and to the right. He kept looking back at the girl every few minutes but she ignored him for the view of the window. When he realized she wasn't going to look at him, the boy leaned over to flirt with the blonde girl that had been trying to get his attention since he had sat down beside her.

Typical. I looked over the girl next to me, she looked relieved his attention had been directed elsewhere and had opened her book and notebook. She pulled a pen from behind her ear and started jotting down notes from the book in her notebook. It was the first day of school, the first class, what the hell was she doing?

I looked around at the rest of the class. Everyone was talking or moving around and here she was, book open, pen out, reading and taking notes...and I was watching her.

"Got a staring problem or something?" The girl asked me out of the side of her mouth, without taking her eyes off of her notepad.

"It's not a problem unless it bothers you." I retorted amused at her evident hostility.

She dropped her pen on her notebook, turned and looked at me with narrowed eyes...they were green.

"You're new." She said without emotion.

"Observant of you." I replied inclining my head to her in mock compliment.

Her mouth twitched but she didn't continue with the thoughts clearly swirling around in her head. She picked her pen back up and continued on with her note taking. I was sure that our conversation was over and looked back out the window when she spoke again.

"Look all you want, but make sure you stay out of my way. You don't cause me problems, I won't cause you problems." Her eyes never left her notepad, from the beginning to the end of the sentence, as it was once again, shot out of the side of her mouth at me.

"You got it princess." I said, my eyes never leaving the view of freedom beyond the glass of my noisey prison. I heard a snort and a soft chuckle, but didn't turn my head. I was too busy fighting back a smirk of my own.

That's when the teacher entered the room, a lazy looking white haired man with an eye patch over his left eye. He wasn't old, but his hair was white...interesting I thought.

"I'm Hatake Kakashi, for those of you who don't know me, for those of you who do, you know the rules."

The teacher's one slate eye found mine and he waved me to the front of the class. I stood. I hated this part.

"We have a new student, from Suna. This is Sabaku no Gaara everyone. Gaara, please introduce yourself to the class." Hatake waved his hand in a lazy gesture.

"I'm Gaara." I said annoyed and made to take my seat again but was stopped by the teacher.

"Oh come on, you can do better than that, what are some of your likes, dislikes, hobbies, things like that?" Hatake insisted.

"I turned back to the class, "I don't like anything, I dislike everything and everyone and my hobbies...are illegal." I ignored the looks and sat down at my desk. 

One look, I did notice though...hers. I met her eyes that followed me to my seat next to hers, I held eye contact with her as I lowered myself into my seat, a small twitch of her lips told me she wasn't going to break eye contact before me. A twitch of my own lips told her, I accept your challenge. 

We stared at one another until the bell rang and the annoying dark haired guy came back to where we were seated to bother the girl again. She gave me a wink, broke eye contact with me, to throw an icy glare in his direction, before leaving the room.

I gathered my things and started walking out the door, the fool stopped me with a hand to my chest. "Get your hand off me, or I'll break it." I growled. How dare he touch me.

"I know who you are, Sabaku." The guy said coldly.

"Then you know not to touch me again." I brushed past him, leaving before I could do something that would get us kicked out of yet another school.

My next class was art. Better than my others, art was...contemplative expression without words. I liked art. It didn't require talking. I walked down the halls, almost cleared, I might be a little late but I don't really care. The art room is chaos when I get there, people milling around like the ants they are. I find a nice quiet place in the back, only, she's there.

"Are you following me?" She glares at me.

"Yes. We have the same class." I say with a sigh, she is annoying, I take it back, she's not interesting.

"Well, stay on your side." She points to the other side of the room, in the back.

"Fine by me, I prefer to be alone." I moved over to the other side in the back, it isn't that far really, but I'd prefer not to argue with her.

I sit on my stool in front of a blank isle and look around. There are a few of the same people from the English class, no dark haired asshole though, that's good.

The teacher came in, a mousy haired woman who could barely speak above a whisper. She called role and handed out canvases and paints. We were supposed to paint, ourselves. I rolled my eyes, how pathetic.

Picking up a large brush from the stand and grabbing the largest tube of black I stood in front of my canvass and squeezed the tube over it. I brushed the black onto the canvass until it was fully covered. I took the green from my paint set and the white and dabbed a bit onto my pallet, then the light blue, a touch, and mixed it together. 

Picking up a scrapper I scooped some of the mixed paint onto the end and touched the point to the canvass, one point, then another facing outward, the opposite way, eyes. With the bloody red I painted my kanji, love. Done, self portrait.

I pulled a book from my back pocket and read for the rest of the class, unaware of the light green eyes that watched me from the otherside of the back of the room. The bell rang and everyone filed out of the room. I stayed until everyone had gone because I don't like being touched and didn't want to deal with the push and the pull of the masses.

The painting on the other side of the room caught my eye. It was black, like mine, green eyes, like mine only lighter, and pink hair, strands of it with white and pale rose littered the bottom of the canvass and the floor. She had cut her hair and used it in her painting? I bent and picked a few strands off of the ground. They were like silk threads in my fingers, I tucked them into my pocket and left the room. We were...similar, yet, different. My interest was peaked yet again.

My next class was Math, boring, logical, easy. Then lunch. I went to the roof, alone. I never ate lunch so there wasn't any point in eating with others, besides I liked the roof, it was quiet, peaceful. I found the edge and threw my feet over, leaned back against the bracing of my arms on the warm tar coating of the roof and closed my eyes.

Footsteps, they stopped advancing mere feet from me. I opened my eyes and heard the footsteps retract, a flash of pink...was she following me, or had I ruined yet another one of her favorite spots. I smiled. Interesting.

Chemistry was always one of my favorite classes, but the teachers never let me make anything interesting. I listened with half an ear in the back while I browsed my new chemistry book. It wasn't bad, I had to admit, a better book than the ones they had provided us in Suna. I would make the suggestion to my father, if I saw him in the next few months. The annoying tapping of a pen caught my ear, a blonde kid in obnoxious orange caught my eye as his pen had caught my ear.

He grinned at me, a maniacally wide...obnoxious grin, like that of his shirt and pants. "Hey" he said.

I nodded my head. He didn't seem, quite, like the others.

"I'm Naruto." he added in a soto quiet voice.

"Gaara, of the Desert." My deep monotone voice could be heard over the silent din of the room.

A few heads turned my way, not many had heard me speak other than first period English.

"Nice to meet you." Naruto grinned at me again.

"Saw you on the roof, you really pissed Sakura off, what'd ya do to manage that, though, it isn't too hard, she has quite a temper." Naruto continued to grin at me.

Sakura, cherry blossom, ah, her.

"Did I?"

"You sure did, she keeps complaining to me that you're everywhere she wants to be." Naruto laughed.

"It...isn't intentional." I replied wondering if they were friends, he seemed an odd sort of kid, but then so was I supposed, so was she.

"I told her that it was most likely coincidence, but she told me she didn't believe in coincidences." The blonde rubbed the back of his head in thought, "I'm not so sure."

"I don't believe in coincidences, either." I said...I didn't.

"Humm, you two, are a lot alike, no wonder you piss her off." Naruto laughed again, his good mood was infectious and I found myself drawn to him, his cheer, it annoyed me.

"I wouldn't know." I lied, I could tell already the pink haired girl and I were...too much alike.

"Let's be lab partners." Naruto says getting up and shoving some poor kid down the table to the other end.

"Sure." I look at the pineapple spikey haired kid who looked only mildly offended at the rough treatment, set his head back on his arms and go back to sleep.

"Great." Naruto grins at me, I stare back at him, expressionless, this is weird.

"What's your last class?" Naruto asks me.

I pull my schedule from my pocket and look, "History, Room 217."

"Hey me too! Sakura will be there too." Naruto grins again, does the kid ever stop grinning?

"Great." I'm not sure how I feel about hearing the pink haired girl will be in my next class, it's an odd feeling but I feel...something.

"We can all sit together." Naruto is grinning again.

"If it's in the back of the room, okay." I say thinking, what the hell have I just agreed to, this isn't like me.

"Of course it will be, Sakura doesn't sit anywhere else. I told you, you're a lot alike." Naruto was grinning again, but it didn't bother me...as much anymore. Fuck, I'm getting used to it.

History class wasn't far from where Naruto and I were so it didn't take long for us together. We sat in the back and waited for Sakura. I pulled my book from my pocket and began to read, Naruto sat beside me chattering away like his life depended on it. I heard every other sentence not really paying too much attention to him when he shot up out of his chair waving both of his arms above his head and yelled, "Sakura!"

I looked up to meet the eyes of the girl I had seen throughout my day, the girl who's eyes met mine with minor annoyance. She walked over to Naruto and I, sat on the other side of Naruto and didn't say much. Naruto continued to talk, turning his head left then right to include both of us in whatever he was saying.

"So Gaara, this is Sakura." Naruto was pushing on my arm trying to get my attention. I put my book down, thumb holding my place and nodded to the girl who wasn't even looking at me.

"Sakura, this is Gaara, he's new." Naruto shoved the girl who nodded in my direction without looking at me.

"Hey, what gives, what's wrong with you two, you're acting like you hate one another." Naruto looked at me then her.

"She's stalking me." I said and opened my book up and started to read again, trying very hard not to smirk at the look of outrage on her pretty face as it snapped toward me.

"What! I am not stalking you! You fuck head." She was glaring at me, I could see her out of the corner of my eye. I continued to ignore her turning a page of my book.

Her breathing was increasing, I could hear her rage, it was...amusing.

"Hey hey Sakura, I'm sure Gaara was just joking, I mean, he doesn't even know you, he's just, right Gaara, you were just kidding right?" Naruto pulls on my arm.

I set my book down on the desk, holding my place with my thumb once again and turning to the blonde and pink haired girl,"You followed me to the roof at lunch time, didn't you."

"I didn't follow you." She protested.

"Were you on the roof at lunch time?" I asked her.

"Yes, but."

"Was I there before you?" I smirked.

"Yeah but."

"Stalker." I smirked in her face leaning over Naruto, "If you want me, all you have to do is say so."

Her face turned a million different shades of red.

"You, you, you, ASSHOLE!" she jumped up out of her seat.

I looked up at the towering mass of pink and smirked, "Yes?"

"Sakura, is this guy bothering you?" A voice interrupted what was sure to be some sort of epic battle between red and pink. I looked to the left to see the same dark haired guy looking from Sakura to myself.

"No." Sakura said, forcing herself to calm down. "Nothing that concerns you Uchiha." She sat back down beside Naruto and ignored me.

Uchiha, so, that's who he was. I knew I didn't like him. I had wondered how long it would be, before I ran into one of the Uchiha of Konoha. Not long apparently.

"It doesn't look like 'nothing' to me. Want me to take care of him for you Sakura?" Sasuke cracked his knuckles at me.

"I don't need your help." Sakura huffed at the guy and turned her head to me, "We're just getting to know one another is all."

I nodded toward her. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. "Yes, getting to know one another." I repeated her words.

Naruto laughed nervously in between us but grinned all the same at the Uchiha.

"Nothing to see here Sasuke." Naruto smiled.

"Hn." Sasuke shot me one last look and turned and left.

"Fucking assholes both of you." I heard the pinkette mumble under her breath as the Uchiha sat down in his chair several rows up.

I laughed to myself, more like a quiet chuckle, but she heard it, the tightening of her fists on her desk told me so.

History went by quickly with the company to distract me. School grades weren't the issue, I could ace every class, if I did the work, showed up and participated, it was the student body that was the problem. No matter how hard I tried, there was always one, or two people who just wouldn't leave me alone, wouldn't let me be by myself, wouldn't mind their own business. I could tell already, Sasuke Uchiha was going to be one of those people.

Class ended, I gathered up my now small pile of books from all of my classes and headed for the door only to be stopped by the pink haired hellion.

"Hey uh, sorry I gave you such a hard time today. You don't seem that bad and well, it's not your fault we like to hide in the same ways." She shrugged a bit and met my eyes.

"I understand." I told her and moved past her out the door. 

I could hear Naruto engage her in conversation as I exited the room, trying to get out of the school as fast as possible.

Temari and Kankuro were at the front of the school waiting for me, the limo was there and we got inside. I swore I saw a flash of pink on the top of the school stairs but could have been wrong.

"So, how was it?" Kankuro asked me.

"Fine." I said pulling my book from my pocket and opening it.

I saw Temari and Kankuro share a look out of the corner of my eye but ignored it in favor of my reading. It was a good book.

We pulled up to the house a few minutes later. I got out of the car and went up to my room, my new room and shut the door. I stood in the middle of the large room. There was my bed to one side, my desk another, the closet in the back, the attached bathroom on the other side. It looked like any other room, boring.

I went to my shelves and pulled my sketch pad from the back and opened it to a blank page, pulling my charcoals out of the desk drawer. I looked out my window, clear enough. 

There was a small garden on the grounds. I noticed it when we first moved here and had the servants place a stone bench in the middle for me. I sat there now with my pad open on my lap, the charcoals next to me and began to draw. Like most of my drawings I didn't have anything in mind, I let the coal move for me, my fingers twisting and turning, curving with the dance of, creating. It was a face.

I looked up at the sky, the clouds were moving swiftly across the spanse of light blue and yellow, a few blossoms passed overhead. My head turned to see the tree from which they came. Sakura. I turned back to my pad and drew several more lines, my eyes moving across the lessening white as my fingers gripped shaded and spun, the curves of a soft jaw, the line of hair and glint of eye, the white of the paper disappearing with each stroke.

I closed my eyes and then opened them to take in the picture as a whole.

"Who's that?" My brother's annoying voice came to me from behind and I flipped the sketchbook closed and glared at him.

"What do you want?" I asked annoyed he had interrupted me, but more angry at myself for not noticing his approach.

"Temari and I are going to go check out the village, want to come?" He asked doubtfully. I could see it in his eyes, he half wanted me there to watch me, half didn't want me there because he knew it was a risk.

"I'll stay." I said, turning my back to him once more and waving him away.

Relief. I could hear it in his breath as he exhaled, he was glad I wasn't going. They always were.

My attention went back to my sketchbook. I flipped it back open to the page I had just been working on.

"Sakura." The lines of her face were soft, like she was, the glint in her eye, suspicious, like she had been, her hair soft and light, like the strands in my pocket.

I pulled them out and looked at them, pink, such an unusual color, like her...she was an unusual girl. I put the strands back into my pocket and flipped the book closed, wandering over the garden then back into the house, up the stairs and into my room.

Maybe this school, this village...wouldn't be so bad.


	2. Chapter 2

My siblings and I arrived at the same time, same place, but to a different scene than the day before. A crowd was gathered at the front of the school, shouts could be heard of laughter and horror. I turned my head away from the crowd wishing to avoid what I could only guess was another disgusting display of humanity when I heard...her. Angry shouting, screams, and her.

"Naruto! Get him, he's coming your way!" I heard Sakura yell, half strangled, half enraged.

I pushed my way to the front of the crowd and saw...the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my life. She was straddling a dark haired male, her petite form sat menacingly on top of a male twice her size and small balled fist after fist slammed into his face, blood splattering over her pale skin, her pale pink hair flying in the breeze from the impact of her blows, she was absolutely feral. She was beautiful.

A grin that I couldn't hold back even if I had wanted to graced my face at the scene playing out before me. She was graceful, she was powerful...she was brutally perfect.

Naruto wasn't far from her wrestling with another male, exchanging verbal taunts and blows of his own. The male Naruto was fighting broke free of the blonde running for Sakura, presumably to assist his friend who was clearly the worse for wear. I watched as the blonde ran, dove and grabbed the guy by the leg, pulled and threw him to the ground, kicking him in the gut over and over as he spit profanities at him. Blood was leaking from the corner of the guys mouth, Sakura didn't even look up from her target, but I knew she had seen everything. She was a fighter, that one.

Sakura rose from the unconscious bloodied body of her foe and tossed back her long pale pink hair, eyes narrowing in on Naruto and his opponent.

"Looks like you're not as tough as you thought." Sakura taunted Naruto's opponent.

I watched as Sakura spat blood to the ground and walked over to Naruto pulling him off the guy, then kicking the prostate male ruthlessly in the face.

"Fucker." She said breathlessly looking up, our eyes met. A vision.

She nodded to me, then taking Naruto by the hand dragged him away from the front of the school off to the side and down the road, leaving two bloodied bodies behind her. I followed, mesmerized, she was an angel covered in blood.

"Gaara!" I heard Kankuro calling my name from behind but I paid him no mind. I would be back, but first...I wanted for the first time in my life...to see, to help...her, them, to know.

Sakura turned, glared at me. "What do you want?" She hissed at me.

"I'll help." I nodded to Naruto who was swaying a bit. I reached out, took his arm and dragged him half up, half off his feet. I knew she didn't need my help. She knew she didn't need my help. We stood there for what seemed like forever until a small jerk of her head...acknowledge my effort.

"Where to?" I asked her. She hesitated, I could tell, she didn't trust me. I didn't blame her. I didn't quite know why I was helping them myself.

"This way." She had hesitated for only a moment, then walked ahead of the blonde and I, and didn't look back until we reached a small house, not far from the school, down a small dingy street.

Sakura opened the front door with a key and motioned me to go into the house first with her friend, I did. I stood in the entrance, Naruto groaning on my arm, his weight increasing, looking around. It was a pit. Old couch, old lamp, old TV. Old everything.

Dingy carpet, tri-colored walls, dim lighting...did she live here alone?

Sakura pushed past us and grabbed a sheet from one of the small back rooms and threw it over the couch. "Put him there." She told me.

I lowered the blonde mass of orange and drying blood onto the sheet covered couch carefully.

"Thanks Gaara." Naruto grinned at me tiredly, his eye was starting to swell where the guy had gotten a decent hit in on the blonde. He had a split lip, and a cut on his face that was bleeding down his neck. Not bad overall, I've had worse.

"Sure." I said

Turning to Sakura, "See ya." I turned to leave but she stopped me with a small hand on my chest.

I looked down, the blood had dried on her fingers and was caked and flaking over her knuckles, her hand was warm, and...forceful.

"Why?" She looked up at me. Green eyes searching mine for...motive. Clever girl.

"I wanted to." I turned and left, pausing at the door. "I'll check in on him when I get out of school."

She nodded. I left. Expressionless, careful to hide the ...emotion I was feeling. How strange.

I nodded to Kakashi when I entered English a half hour late.

"Everything okay Gaara?" He asked me. 

His eye roamed the blood imprints Sakura had left on the front of my shirt, the flakes of dried blood on my sleeve from Naruto, the dried blood on the side of my arm where Naruto's blood had smeared across it when I had lowered him down onto the couch.

A could hear the whispers behind me. Naruto and Sakura's name met my ears. I turned to look at the 'Others', silence followed me to my seat in the back.

"Fine Sensei." I took my seat. Kakashi's lone eye watched me then resumed his lecture on romance novels and why they were just as good a read as any classic.

Kakashi hadn't asked me why I was late. He knew.

I looked out the window as he talked and thought about what I had seen that morning. That wasn't the first fight she and the obnoxious blonde had been in together, they fought like they had fought together often and I wondered how many fights they had been in together and why.

I was no stranger to fist fights, that's why I switched schools so often but I rarely fought girls, in fact, I had never fought a girl and wondered what the males had done to provoke the little pink haired hellcat. Perhaps it had been Naruto who had provoked them, Sakura seemed the type to protect her friends...admirable and yet...foreign to me. It made me wonder, what else...what else was there to her. I had to get to know her better, I wanted to get to know her better. 

Was that what a friend was? Someone who you could count on in a fight, like Sakura, like Naru to? 'Is that why I had helped him, he had called me his friend', who knows, maybe I had done it for her...it was, unlike me. I turned to look around the room. It seemed different, without her there and it was only the second day. Useless. I turned and looked back out the window.

The day was much more annoying and boring than I could have anticipated without the presence of the pinkette and her blonde friend. I had never thought anyone interesting enough to...notice their absence before. History went by just as slowly as all of the other classes and once again I found myself looking out the window.

The bell rang, bringing me back to my surroundings. I rose with the rest and walked out the front doors of the school, past the few small spots of blood from that morning to see my sister and brother waiting for me by our car.

"I'll walk home." I told them and started walking toward the house I had left Sakura and Naruto in that morning.

"Where the hell is he going?" I heard Temari ask my brother but kept walking, it wasn't any of their business.

There were a few other students walking down the same street when I turned down the small lane from that morning, off the main street I saw the Uchiha stop and watch me, I didn't care if he saw where I was going. It wasn't any of his business. The small thought in the back of my head, 'He knows where she lives' was pushed from my mind...for now.

I knocked on her door, it opened almost immediately.

"Gaara! You came." Naruto was grinning at me, a bandage over his right eye, wrapped haphazardly around his head.

"I did." I said and walked through the door at his invitation.

Sakura came around the corner from what I assumed was the kitchen with a soda in her hand. "Want one?" She offered it to me.

"No." I said.

"Well, sit down." Naruto gestured to the couch I had laid him on earlier.

I sat down beside the blonde who looked much better than he had this morning.

"You live here alone?" I asked Sakura as she sat down on an old dingy rocking chair across from the couch.

"Naruto and I do." She said and the blonde grinned.

"We were in the same orphanage and both got 'Let go' at the same time. It's our last year of high school, but since we're of age, we got kicked out of the orphanage." She shrugged.

I nodded. That explained their friendship and the shabbiness of their home.

"My dad left me some money when he died and I got it when I came of age sooo, I bought this house for us and we share the expenses." Naruto explained their situation to me further.

"It's not much but it's ours." Sakura said defensively looking at me, daring me to say something.

"Why were you fighting?" I asked them. 'Why did I care', I asked myself.

Sakura looked...relieved, at the change of subject. She's proud. I tucked that away in the back of my mind but chastised myself nonetheless...of course she would be.

"Because we're different from everyone else and they don't know what to think of us." Sakura said as she continued to stare me down.

I looked back at her accepting her silent challenge. She didn't need to be ashamed, I wasn't judging her.

"People here, they don't get it ya know, they don't understand our bond, what we've...been through." Naruto said quietly for once. Subdued.

I broke my eyes from Sakura's green ones and looked at Naruto, his eyes were a dull blue. "Bond?" I asked him.

"Yeah, ya know when you go through something, deep, with someone, you form bonds, like Sakura and I have, we're, you know. Close, like a family." Naruto's eyes grew brighter as he talked about his bond with Sakura. 

I looked back at Sakura who was looking at Naruto, her eyes had softened. I watched, they were sharing...a moment. 'Is that what their bond was'...

"How long." I asked them.

"What?" Sakura turned from her friend to look at me.

"How long have you been here." I waved my hand in a quick encompassing gesture.

"A few months, but we have gone to that fucking school and seen those kids since we were at the orphanage, they know our situation..." Sakura said, looking at her toes as they dug into the dirty carpet at her feet.

"The Uchiha?" I asked her pointedly.

She sneered, her lips curling up into a sinister sort of curl. Naruto scoffed, then stifled a choking cough when Sakura's head whipped around to his.

"Is an arrogant fuck." She looked me in the eye. "What's it to you."

Her questions were more like statements, her statements more like commands...we really were a lot alike.

"Why does he...focus on you the way he does, he seems more the type to care about material things. I would think his interests would be more...blonde." I said.

Sakura snorted. "It's because I won't let him do what he wants, I'm a conquest, nothing more." She said bitterly.

"He doesn't know a thing about you does he." I watched her.

"You do?" She glared at me.

"Hey guys, easy. Let's just relax okay." Naruto looked at me then her and grinned nervously.

"He doesn't stand a chance is all I'm saying." I said.

Sakura snorted again. "He's not my type." She looked me up and down, smirking.

I looked back at her just as boldly. "And what is your type?" I asked her then, smirking myself.

A spark flashed in her eyes, just once. If I hadn't been watching her so intently I would have missed it.

"Maybe I don't have one." She lowered her eyes and watched me through her lashes.

"Maybe you just haven't met him yet." I couldn't look away from her, I wanted to, I should, but I couldn't.

"I think she just did." Naruto mumbled.


	3. Chapter 3

"Where were you?" My brother was leaning up against the doorframe to my bedroom.

It doesn't concern you." I gave him a blank stare, he would leave eventually. I did wonder at his curiosity though, he never asked such...intrusive questions of me. Until now.

Kankuro watched me draw from my doorway, he didn't enter my room, he wouldn't. I had never wanted him to, he learned not to enter without permission, the bloody way.

Eventually he left, mumbling under his breath about seeing what Temari was up to. I looked up after he had gone. It was only recently they had started talking to me. Only recently I had stopped...punishing them for talking to me. When we were younger, I would lash out at them, hurt them...punish them for being, alive, normal, liked.

As I got older, I cared less what others thought because I knew, it would never change, their thoughts would always be the same, no matter who , what or where I was. People hated me, were terrified of me, thought I was a monster.

Except Sakura and Naruto. They didn't seem to think I was a monster. 

_They don't know you_

The voice in my head whispered to me. The voice, that voice. I used to think it was my mother, the mother I had never known, the mother my uncle Yashamaru had insisted loved me. The only person to love me.

Yashamaru had loved me, or I thought he had then, that day he...I didn't want to think about it. Damn, I had broken the pencil in my hand and ruined my drawing...of her. Again, of her. I couldn't get her out of my mind.

Their house was... small yes, but empty. They hardly had anything. If I gifted them something, they didn't have to know it was from me...did they? I threw the broken pencil into my trash and sat back at my desk thinking. I had only seen their living room. The couch, it was old and ratty. The stuffing had been coming out of the side, it had looked third hand, maybe even fourth.

The urge to do something, for someone else was...new. I wanted to see where it led. Curiosity gripped me.

I moved my sketch pad to the shelf by my desk and turned on my laptop, they needed a new couch. They didn't have to know it was from me. 

Sitting back in my chair I surveyed the online receipt...why did I care? This was...new to me but it felt good. I smiled to myself, then frowned. Sakura. She would be pissed, I knew that much about her. Well, like I said to myself earlier, she didn't have to know it was from me did she? I chose rush delivery. I had a feeling Naruto slept on the couch, the house was one room and as far as I could tell, they were just friends. What if I was wrong. That feeling again. I pulled on my hair. 

There was laughing in my head. Damn it, not now, not after so long of nothing, the voice was coming back again. I couldn't lose control, not now. I had...something to interest me, I had, something now. Something I had never had before...friends.

_You don't have any friends, they aren't your friends. No one would be friends with you. You will only ever have me boy, only me. I am your only friend._

"No!" I screamed and pulled on my hair. I had been doing so well! Fuck! No!

"No!" I screamed again and fell to the floor. "I could have friends." I argued with the voice.

_You can't! Hate is all you're good for! Live only for yourself! Love only yourself! Fight only for yourself! Love is a weakness! Friendship is a lie!_

"No! Go away!" I moaned, I didn't want this, I didn't want the voice to come back, I had been doing so well, no, no no.

_You remember what happened with Yashamaru, don't you boy? He said he loved you, he said you were special to him, then...he tried to kill you. They are the same. You are a fool._

"Yashamaru was different. I killed him, he doesn't matter anymore." I told the voice in my head.

_And yet here you are, making the same mistakes over and over again. I thought you were a smart boy. I guess I was wrong._

The voice faded away. I rose to a sitting position and smoothed my hair out as best I could. No, this was different. They were different. Weren't they?

I pulled my sketchbook back out, grabbed a new pencil from my box and turned the page to a blank one. I sat there holding the pad and the pencil in my hand looking out my bedroom window. It was going to rain, I could tell. It had been raining then too, Yashamaru...

Flashback...

The rain came down in torrents. Unusual for this time of the year. Unusual for the desert...Suna. I sat on the ledge of my window in my suite, the rain felt like little needles sharp and precise on my skin, it felt...good. It was warm, it was always warm in Suna. 

I watched the rain falling from the heaven's onto the sand. So beautiful I thought, so different. I smiled to myself. I always liked things that were different. I was different, at least that's what my Uncle Yashamaru said to me. I smiled as I thought of my Uncle, my mother's brother. He was the only one who cared about me, who took the time to talk to me, to play with me.

I hardly ever saw my siblings, my brother or my sister, and I rarely saw my father, the Kazekage. The villagers were scared of me, but I never knew why. The children wouldn't play with me, I didn't understand. What Was so wrong with me, I was just a little kid. Years later I would understand. It was the shadow of darkness that had surrounded the death of my mother, my birth. They thought I was cursed. I didn't have any friends and when Yashamaru had to leave the village to go on missions...I was left alone.

The servants would bring me food, water, whatever I wanted, but they never stayed, they never talked, they just did what they were called to do and then left me alone again.

That's why I liked the rain. That's why the wet didn't bother me, it was new, it was rare, it was something in my world of nothing. When it rained...I wasn't alone. When it rained, the world became new. After the rain, the flowers would bloom across the desert, a sea of delicate beauty and when that happened...I felt alive.

Mother.

Yashamaru told me that my mother loved the rain for the same reasons I did. The smell, the feel, the flowers...the peace. Was I like her, I wondered. Would she have loved me, I wondered. Would she be proud of what I had become. Would I still feel so alone, I wondered. Too much. It was too much. I hated feeling this way. I hated being alone all the time!

My tears mixed with the rain and fell down my face unhindered. Yes, another reason I liked the rain. No one could tell if you were crying or not, no one to judge you, to look at you with those cold, or angry eyes, no one to blame you, to point and say, "That's him, the monster.' No one to judge me except myself and I did...harshly.

That's how Yashamaru found me. I was still on the window sill, still looking out over the desert, soaked to my underclothes, watching the rain.

Flashback...  
_"Gaara, come away from there, you'll get sick." Yashamaru had called to me. I could hear the concern in his voice, see it in the lines of his face. He cared about me, the only one who cared about me. The one to make me want to...care about myself._

I nodded and jumped down from the sill. He was the only one I really listened to, the only one who...helped with the demon inside, the voice.

"I need to talk to you Gaara, something has happened." Yashamaru said to me, pulling my wet tunic from my body and shoving a clean dry one over my head.

He threw a towel over my head and began to dry my hair, my head bobbing back and forth with his efforts.

"I met someone Gaara, her name is Mikomei, she is a shinobi, like me. We've been dating for a while now and..." Yashamaru paused.

"It is getting serious. I am thinking of asking her to marry me. I care about her, a lot." Yashamaru continued.

"Marry you?" I asked him.

"To be my wife, to start a family." He smiled at me.

"I am your family." I glared at him. He was supposed to only care about me...

"I know and that won't change, but if she says yes, then she will also be part of our family, more people to love you Gaara." Yashamaru smiled at me, I tried to smile back, I knew that's what he had wanted.

"She won't like me." I started to cry, no one liked me, except Yashamaru.

"She will, she isn't like other people, she will love you Gaara, like I do, once she sees there is nothing to fear, that you are a good boy, I have talked to her about you, she knows how much I care about you." Yashamaru insisted.

"I don't know. I'm scared." I admitted to him that I was worried. The tears had stopped but my lips still quivered. What if she didn't like me, what if Yashamaru had to choose? Would he choose me or her?

"Don't worry Gaara. I promise she will like you." Yashamaru hugged me.

"If she doesn't?" I asked him, still worried.

"Then she isn't the right woman for me Gaara and I will find another." He smiled down at me.

"Promise?" I asked, smiling at him. He would choose me...he would choose me...

_"I promise Gaara, I'll never leave you, I love you like my own son, I promise." Yashamaru hugged me and kissed the top of my head._

End Flashback...

"Liar." I hissed to myself. He had lied to me, had broken his promise to me. Everyone lies, everyone betrays...were Naruto and Sakura any different.

I had been sketching while my thoughts had run rampant. I looked down at my pad. Rain. Her soft locks were wet and matted to the side of her cheeks, her eyes sparkled with the moisture crystallized on her skin, the moonlight, for I had drawn her at night, looking up to the open sky crying out her desperation...

I sighed. I was a fool. Is this what they called, obsession?


	4. Chapter 4

My phone rang. I pulled it out of my pocket. 

"I told you to wait a week before contacting me." My voice was harsh, unforgiving...he knew better than to disobey me.

"Gaara Sama, please forgive me, but we have a situation that requires your attention. The shipment...it was lost." The voice came to me over the wire, frightened, weak.

"Lost." One word, my tone deafening.

I could almost feel the man shaking on the other end, the muffled wavering of his hand, the device twitching against his face, the slide of sweat forming at his temple.

"Lost!" I screamed into the phone, I could hear the plastic of the phone cracking from the pleasure of my grip.

"Or stolen..." I said tonelessly. 

"Find out who or find it. Your life depends on it Jun." I pressed a finger over the end button on my phone, who, who dared to steal from me...lost, nothing is lost, only stolen in my line of work.

Someone was taking advantage of my change in location. It was only a matter of time. I would find them, torture them, then kill them. I couldn't have any weak points right now, not when I was expanding into Konoha. This move had been more than advantageous to my budding enterprise, no matter how...unexpected. 

I was adaptable though, my experience with Yashamaru had taught me the wisdom of such a quality. To survive, one needed to adapt. To adapt you needed to be strong. I was strong, I would survive, which is something I couldn't say for the person who had the audacity and foolishness to steal...from me, Gaara of the Desert.

I couldn't sleep. That wasn't unusual for me, I hardly slept. A side effect of my 'disorder', they called it Insomnia, I called it stress.

My ceiling had twelve thousand six hundred and seventy three tiles in it. I counted them twice. Two phone calls, that's all it took to find out who had, misplaced my shipment. Three days. Three days and they would be taken care of. I replayed the phone conversation in my head. 

"It was a mistake." He claimed.

"I'm sorry, please forgive me." He begged.

"It won't ever happen again." He assured me.

"Lies." I whispered.

"Dead man." I told him.

"Three days." I let him know.

I rolled over in my bed and looked out the window. There was too much on the line right now for such...loose ends. I needed another ‘Manager', someone who paid attention to details, to the little things. If Jun had been more...'Attentive', this never would have happened.

That damn snake, that opportunist. I could blame him but it wasn't his fault, it was in his nature, no, it was Jun's fault, my fault for trusting Jun to...be better than he was. Well, I learn from my mistakes. This wouldn't be happening again.

New territory, new management, but who...who was there. Temari perhaps. My sister was sharp, intelligent and she could be just as ruthless as I could, but...did she have the stomach for such things... She had never shown an interest in my dealings before but then again, I had never let her. I turned over in my bed again.

There was Sakura. Perhaps... It was a risk though, I barely knew the girl. She did show promise, and it wouldn't be charity. She would be earning it and I knew, she needed money...badly. Perhaps.

My mind betrayed me. My eyes went to my night stand where I had placed the glass cork topped vial of her hair. The long strands glistened in the moonlight, a pale rose hue, stunning in their simplicity. She was...different, like me. Yes, I was obsessed and I wasn't even ashamed to admit it. Lies were funny things, needed, hated..but to myself, never.

I stared back up at my ceiling. I had never looked forward to school before now, but then again, I had never had someone as interesting to go to school with before. My mind began to wander again. What had happened to her parents, what had happened to Naruto's parents...their family names, I had heard them before but I wasn't sure where I had heard them. Perhaps the news, were they murdered? It seemed unlikely, both of their parent's murdered... I would look into it.

Rising from my bed I went to my desk and turned on my laptop. Three emails later, I got back into my bed, a sigh. I closed my eyes, maybe sleep would find me yet.

Morning came in the form of a ding from my laptop. A reply to one of my emails...Baki was quick. I clicked on it and it popped open on my screen.

Of course...that's where I had heard the names Haruno and Uzumaki before. Five years ago when I had still been in Suna, not long after my father had been crowned Kazekage, Konoha's underground had shifted. The Haruno clan and the Uzumaki clan were sister clans, having had members intermarry over the last two centuries, they were practically one clan, and a powerful one. Their only rival in Konoha, the Uchiha.

Suna never had much business with the Uzumaki or the Haruno clans who operated mainly in Konoha and Rivers, our territories never overlapped. About five years ago though, the Uzumaki and Haruno clans had decided to expand into Rain. Rain was an unofficial Uchiha territory. That's when Sakura and Naruto's parents had been murdered. No one had come forth after the murders, but everyone had suspected the Uchiha. 

I remembered Baki and my father talking about it in hushed voices when they didn't think I was listening. They said Uchiha Madara had had the two main families of the two opposing clans killed, their children orphaned. If that was the case though, why were Sakura and Naruto living only one step up from poverty? Naruto said his father had left him some money but...surely the son and daughter of the main clan heads would have more money than what they showed they had. It didn't make sense to me.

I was missing something...I needed to find out what it was.

After showering and dressing I shot off a quick email to Baki to find out what had happened to the main families children, I needed verification. I don't like to assume, while I'm 99 percent sure Sakura and Naruto are the only remaining children of the Uzumaki and Haruno main line, I want proof. He would get back to me, he had never failed me. If only he wasn't overly loyal to my father, he would make an excellent manager.

I made it to my first class without any blood on the ground, no fights, no shouting. I was in my seat in the back of the room when she entered. She sat down in the seat next to me like before, pretending not to notice me. I had my book out in front of me, reading, pretending not to notice her.

"Sakura." The Uchiha had come to the back of the room not even pausing at his own desk to drop off his books.

"What Sasuke." Sakura asked him not looking at him, she was looking...at me?

I cast my eyes to the side and caught a flash of pink as she threw her ponytail over her shoulder, green eyes met my guarded gaze. She knew that I knew. Observant as usual I mused. My mouth twitched.

The Uchiha noticed our little byplay and scowled.

"I just wanted to make sure you were alright, after what happened yesterday, you didn't return, and this guy." A hand was motioning in my direction, " Came back with blood on him."

Sakura laughed a humourless laugh and turned to Sasuke, "He helped, unlike you."

I turned my head to her, our eyes met. I nodded a greeting, she smiled.

"I would have helped, if you had let me." Sasuke complained.

"Your point?" Sakura said clearly annoyed.

Sasuke didn't respond right away; he stood there looking at her, his eyes flickering to me every few seconds.

"My point Sakura," Sasuke paused and looked at me. I turned my head fully to meet his challenge. "Is you court danger bringing a monster like him into your home." The Uchiha nodded in my direction.

"A monster? Do you...do you know one another?" Sakura looked from Sasuke to myself, the surprise was clear in her voice.

"We know...of each other's family history." I said, my eyes fixed on those of the Uchiha.

"Stay away from her." Sasuke growled at me.

"Like your Uncle Madara did?" I asked him, his mouth twitched and his fingers flexed at his sides.

Sakura watched us, the tension was palpable. Her fingers twitched...

"Uchiha Madara..." Her voice was like steel.

'Did she know', it seemed like she might.

"I am NOT my Uncle. Sakura please. I've told you that. I told you..." Sasuke said quietly.

"And I told you, I'm not interested." Sakura said forcefully.

Sakura turned to me then, her eyes bright and calculating, "Would you like to have lunch together, today?"

I nodded. There were things we had to say to one another then.

"Sakura, you're making a mistake. You have no idea what you're getting into, he's not who you think he is." Sasuke grabbed her arm.

I stood up and stepped forward. "Let her go." My voice was calm, direct.

Sasuke sneered at me. Sakura stood up, one hand reached out to each of us, palm out against each of our chests. "Enough."

She turned to Sasuke, "Don't tell me what to think."

She turned to me, "Lunch."

I nodded to her and sat back down, my eyes fixed unblinking on the Uchiha. Sasuke flung her hand away and stomped off to the front of the room where the blonde was waiting for him.

Sakura turned and took the two steps needed to bring her close to me. Her head bent to mine, her mouth over my ear," I don't know exactly who you are but I have an idea. I told you. I don't want any trouble. I told you, you stay out of my way, I'll stay out of yours."

She straightened up and moved to step back to her desk when I shot my hand out and grabbed her by the wrist pulling her back down. I turned my head to her ear, just above the crook of her neck, "I'm not any more trouble than that Uchiha, except I'm not related to anyone who may or maynot have killed your family." 

My lips moved over the sensitive skin of her neck. I felt her tremble slightly, then stiffen at my words. She turned her face into my ear, like I had done to her and her lips brushed my neck suggestively, "Be careful Sabaku, I'm not as innocent as I look and Naruto isn't as clueless as he may seem."

She moved her hand over mine where I gripped her wrist and released my hold on her, twisting my hand up and over forcing her own small hand over top of my now flat palm on the desk and leaned further into my personal space, the end of her pony tail falling over her shoulder brushing against the side of my cheek..."Don't underestimate me Gaara."

Sakura pulled back and stepped away from me as Kakashi entered the room. Our eyes met, she smiled sweetly, I smirked..."That isn't how I do things." I assured her.

She inclined her head to me and sat back down at her desk pulling her book out from her bag and pretended to ignore me for the rest of the class. My eyes never left her from that moment until the bell rang. I let her go at the end of class, walk ahead of me down the hall to the art room. I walked in after her, set my things up in the back on the other side of the room, watching.

It was a game we were playing and we both knew it. Each step planned, each word chosen with great care, the meaning was clear...'I don't trust you but...you intrigue me and I can't help myself, I want to know more. Give me more.'

Yes, we understood one another...lunch couldn't come quickly enough.


End file.
